History of Choy Lee Fut

Choy Lee Fut was founded by Chan Heung (陳享) [Mandarin: Chén Xiǎng]. He was fortunate enough to have trained with three masters who each taught him different aspects of the rich tradition of the Shaolin Temple.

Immediately after Chan Heung started teaching, in addition to the multitude of schools that were instructing the general public, the complete system was being trained behind closed doors. Its practitioners were members of the Chan family and their close disciples. In this way, the responsibility of passing the tradition to the next generation fell to the Jeung Mun Yan (keeper of the style) or the son who showed the most aptitude for Kung Fu and Qigong.

Below are the 5 Jeung Mun Yan from the style’s founder to our teacher (and 5th generation Jeung Mun Yan).

Chan Heung (陳享) [Mandarin: Chén Xiǎng], the Founder of the Choy Lee Fut system of Kung Fu, first taught his art nearly two hundred years ago. From the age of seven, Chan Heung was taught martial arts by his uncle and village elder, Chan Yuen Wu. Chan Heung showed great promise – though only a boy he was strong and quick to learn. He had a natural ability and his uncle recognised this and spared no effort in teaching him all that he knew. Chan Heung made such remarkable progress that he was invited to set up a school for his uncle in the town of Sun Wui.

In 1823, as Chan Heung’s reputation grew and his school prospered another instructor by the name of Lee Yau San came to teach in the neighbourhood. Lee was a disciple of a Shaolin monk, Ji Sin, and a 5 family elder. Chan Heung, being strong willed and a lover of a good fight, decided to test his skills. He ambushed Lee as he was leaving a restaurant and tried to throw him to the ground by putting both his arms around Lee’s waist. However, Lee took the attack calmly, bent his knees slightly, and lowered his chi and centre of gravity in such a way that no matter how hard Chan Heung tried, he could not make Lee budge. Lee then spun around, lifted his foot to trip and kick at the same time, and threw Chan Heung yards away.

Lee was rather curious about his assailant upon seeing that Chan Heung was able to leap up uninjured after his fall. Lee complimented Chan Heung, then demanded to know what school he belonged to, and the reason for attacking him in such a sneaky fashion rather than challenging him properly to a fight. Chan Heung felt ashamed, and replied that the attack was his own idea in an attempt to test the inadequacy of his own skill, and that he did not want to implicate his teacher for his own defeat. Lee, amused at this reply, left Chan Heung in his bewilderment.

Days later Chan Heung learned that Lee had remarked that someone as young and strong as Chan Heung, with such intelligence and ability, was wasting his life and talent because vanity prevented him from improving his skill. Chan Heung then realised the truth, that there was no limit to the art of kung fu. He immediately resigned his post as chief instructor and was accepted as a student by Master Lee Yau San. Chan Heung was 17 years old and was Lee’s disciple for five years. This training took his skill to new heights.

Lee Yau San and Chan Heung heard of a reclusive monk by the name of Choy Fook, who was living in temple on mount Law Fou. This monk was renowned for his skill in Chinese medicine. Lee told Chan Heung that if the monk was so skilful in dit da (treatment of muscular and skeletal injuries), he must also be skilful in martial arts. Bitten by the bug of curiosity, Lee and Chan decided to visit this monk immediately. On reaching the temple gate, they encountered a man, old in years, yet tall and muscular, with a penetrating gaze. He claimed that he was a disciple of monk Choy Fook and invited the two visitors to enter the temple and take some tea with him while waiting for his teacher’s return from his daily rounds.

While the two visitors were seated, the old man proceeded to chop the wood to boil the water, doing so with his bare hands. Lee’s curiosity was aroused. He commented to Chan Heung that this old mans kung fu was quite good, and that if he was showing off for their benefit it meant they must reply with some of their own tricks. Lee got up and walked to the side of a stone rice grinder that was lying next to the temple steps. (A rice grinder consists of two circular slabs of granite approximately 24 inches in diameter and 9 inches deep joined together with a dowel in the centre. Rice is put between the two slabs of stone and ground to flour for cooking.) He first loosened the soil around the stone slabs, then stood back and kicked the rice grinder clean off the ground. The old man watched with amusement. He then walked up to the rice grinder and chopped off a corner of the top slab, pulverising it with his bare hands and throwing the powder in front of Lee, announcing that he was indeed Choy Fook and that the powder was a memento for intruders who did not behave in a proper manner.

Lee, filled with respect for Choy Fook, thanked the old man and left immediately, leaving Chan Heung behind to deal with the situation. Being a guileless young man devoted to martial arts, Chan Heung realised that this was an opportunity to further his training under another teacher of superior skill. He immediately fell on his knees in front of the monk and begged Choy Fook to accept him as a disciple. Choy Fook surveyed Chan Heung in silence – taking in the young man’s mannerisms – and finally concluded that the request was a genuine one. He smiled and said to Chan Heung that if he wished to be a disciple he must obey the following three instructions or else he must leave immediately:

• Chan Heung must stay with him in the monastery for at least ten years until the end of his apprenticeship;
• Chan Heung was forbidden to use his skills to kill or to maim, and must never be boastful of what he attained;
• Chan Heung must kick the rice grinder back into its original resting place. This last instruction was a test set by Choy Fook to ensure a heavenly mandate for teaching Chan Heung. If Chan Heung was successful, that would indicate a good omen and heavenly permission for Choy Fook to take Chan Heung as a student.

Much to Chan Heung’s delight the rice grinder fell back into its old hole easily, and he became Choy Fook’s disciple.

For the next ten years, Choy Fook taught Chan Heung kung fu with great discipline and precision. Each new technique took days to learn, and Chan Heung had to master each new movement with speed, accuracy, power and understanding before the next could be taught. Chan Heung found his kung fu improved remarkably, and was very different to what it had been. The knowledge passed down by Choy Fook, whether bare fist techniques, the staff or wooden dummy training aids, etc., was endless and full of subtle changes, like nature itself. A combination of hard work, dedication, natural ability, and the karma of a good teacher enabled Chan Heung to complete his training within the ten-year period.

Although he was quite willing to send Chan Heung home in 1835, Choy Fook continued to say that to be a true follower of Shaolin, one must also seek the way of the Buddha as well as learning medicine and the ‘six magic spells’. Hearing that, Chan Heung decided to stay for an extra two years until he was ready to leave the monastery in the twelfth year.

At the time of his farewell, Chan Heung asked his teacher to spell out his future. Choy Fook told him that although he was not meant for the life of a court official (by sitting the martial examination), he and his offspring would be leaders of men as long as the Shaolin tradition was kept alive. Amongst other advice given, Choy Fook gave Chan Heung a double couplet which time has proven to be authentic:

龍虎風雲會
徒兒好自爲
重光少林術
世代毋相遺

The dragon and the tiger met in heaven
To revive our Shaolin ways
Teach your followers righteousness
let each generation uphold and enliven

Chan Heung returned to his village and set up a clinic to treat the sick and help the poor. Later he was persuaded to set up a school in the village ancestral hall. He called the place Hung Sing Gwoon and his clinic Wing Sing Tong. Instead of selfishly calling his brand of Kung Fu the Chan style he chose the name Choy Lee Fut: Choy in honour of monk Choy Fook, Lee in honour of Lee Yau San and Fut meaning Buddha (in Cantonese) to commemorate the Buddhist origin of the art, since all three of his mentors could trace their lineage back to the Shaolin temple.

Chan Yiu Chi (陳耀墀) [Mandarin: Chén Yào Chí] was the second son of Chan Koon Pak the 2nd generation inheritor of the Choy Lee Fut kung fu system and grandson of the founder Chan Heung. Yiu Chi was born in Sun Wui County into a time of great change as China entered the emerging modern world as a republic.

The western trade with southern China afforded many Chinese a chance to live a better life and the Chinese once again searched for knowledge and better education. The early 1900’s saw a massive revival in public education and interest in national pride of its citizens that for generations had lived with widespread illiteracy and upheaval.

Yiu Chi was skilled in his family fighting art Choy Lee Fut as soon as he was born. His father Koon Pak had built a successful business and was as well renowned martial arts master with many schools and pupils. Yiu Chi grew up surrounded by martial arts as his fathers had many of his disciples living and training under the his roof.

In those times, Yiu Chi was personally trained by his father every day for hours. His father’s disciples tested him at every step of his learning and supported the young Master.

Yiu Chi was a bright boy with a great aptitude for learning. Under his father’s insistence, Yiu Chi was afforded a scholastic education in addition to his rigorous training schedule.

Yiu Chi, famous for his relaxed, devastating speed and stealthy kung fu techniques held degrees in Chinese medicine, Chinese classics and calligraphy. It was his great foresight in creating a formal learning process in Choy Lee Fut that is his greatest legacy to us all.

There is no doubt that his creation of a teaching manual was a major factor in the worldwide spread of Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu in southern Asia and the world. Choy Lee Fut is one of the most practiced southern kung fu styles in the world today as a result.

Both Chan Heung, our founder, and Koon Pak, his father, had committed to writing manuals on the essence and descriptions of the fundamentals to advanced techniques of Choy Lee Fut Fighting system.

Yiu Chi, with his foresight, set about in the later part of his life to translating the oral tradition and the complete knowledge passed to him by his father and grandfather into over 300 hand-written manuals. Each manual gives a detail description on specific aspects of Choy Lee Fut, such as free fighting, the art of training power, bak gwa fighting techniques, hand forms, weapon forms, qigong sets, 2-8 man hand and weapons sparring sets, the art of divination, 18 wooden dummies and much more.

As in all Martial arts oral traditions, the way the Masters have passed on the art can be watered down though bad interpretations or simply students’ learning difficulties.

Yiu Chi set about providing a written syllabus for future generations of Choy Lee Fut practitioners. As Choy Lee Fut has such a vast arsenal of hand and weapon sets together with external and internal sets, it can offer many different things to many students. The curriculum divided into primary, intermediate and advanced training levels enables the student to advance and master through the skills on offer.

Yiu Chi was the first and only one to do this directly from the knowledge of his family’s private manuscripts. As a result, all his pupils learned exactly the same forms, sets, names and descriptions of movements as each other — regardless of their teacher or geographic position.

Yiu Chi’s choice to do this was no fluke. Yiu Chi taught in over 20 schools and higher education facilities where his students demanded a structured education in the art of Choy Lee Fut. He began teaching as young as 15 years old at the invitation of the Canton Guild hall in south Asia. He also taught in overseas guilds and trade union workshops. There, time was short so his pupils required clear, reproducible teaching methods where they could see and measure progress with or without the tutelage of Master Yiu Chi correcting them.

Yiu Chi and his father’s pupils came from all walks of life but in those times, self defense was still a major concern within China and Hong Kong. Territories were still controlled by warlords, government troops, local corrupt constabularies and local gangs. Kung fu was still used in self defense in the streets where lawlessness was widespread.

Yiu Chi taught in railway, catering, labourer, manufacturing, rice and metal foundry trade unions as well as public, private and middle schools and Guangdong University. He also taught his own countrymen in Kin Mui and Sun Wui County. Yiu Chi also travelled abroad as a young man to assist his father Koon Pak’s students in schools that had been already established.

Yiu Chi trained hard under his father Koon Pak including mastering the 18 wooden dummies at a young age at the house of his father’s disciple Choy Bak Tat. Choy Bak Tat was a dedicated student of Koon Bak for many years and his family’s wealth in merchant trading had supported the construction of all the 18 Choy Lee Fut wooden dummies at his home. The dummies train free fighting and weapon skills, focusing on balance, reaction time, speed, power, offence, defense and stealth.

Yiu Chi’s later students remember their beloved Sifu as a master of sze (redirection of force), sim (evading), bai (coverage), fi (speed), din (lightening) and hou (interpretation)

Yiu Chi remained totally relaxed when he attacked or defended and drew his power internally. His mastery of footwork (together with his lightening fast hands driven by his internal ging lik) put him wherever he needed to be in a fraction of a second.

Yiu Chi’s high sense of interpretation of the attacker’s movements meant he could meet the attacker’s force and counter it before it struck its target.

A tall, softly-spoken man, his deposition was to be open to his pupils on fighting techniques and a physical demonstration on applications of techniques occurred whenever he was asked a question by his pupils.

Yiu Chi had a profound understanding of his grandfather’s and father’s art. His ability to pass on skills to his pupils is evident in the high level of Choy Lee Fut masters that came from Yiu Chi’s schools.

Apart from teaching hundreds of general students over his lifetime, Yiu Chi had divided his later day senior students into three groups. The objective was to have each group achieve the maximum benefits in mastering Choy Lee Fut techniques.

A part of Yiu Chi’s approach to teaching was to have pupils follow a program that got the best results according to daily activity, body types, mental and physical abilities. For example his pupils in the unions do physical labor and already have many of the basic strength skills so he would teach forms/weapons that advance their co-ordination. Opposed to a middle school were his students are younger and may not have developed physical strength but a great aptitude to understanding physics so his focus is on forms that teach speed and subtle attacks as opposed to brute strength.

Yiu Chi has over 80 recorded disciples that are considered long term students within these there are 3 groups. Each group learnt the Choy Lee Fut system but Yiu Chi had them focus/specialize in certain “essences of CLF”.

Group 1 was known as the Four Great Heavenly Kings. These 4 disciples were renowned for their focus on Gung (power), Qi (energy), Fai (speed), and mastery of the bak gwa techniques

Group 2 was known as “War Hap Yee Sing” (Uniting Together of the Immortals). These disciples developed and focused on Qi (internal energy), Yum Yern Gung (soft and hard power), Fai (speed), and bak gwa directional changing

Group 3 was known as “Yee Sup Sei Sing Suks” (24 Immortal Uncles). All these were assistant instructors and focused on mastering the 3 levels of instruction with fist, weapon and dummy forms divided into primary, intermediate and advanced. Their focus was to master of all the forms within these three levels.

This system enabled Yiu Chi to teach vast numbers of people Choy Lee Fut in his later life. Concentrating and mastering a particular skill and then helping your brothers to understand that same skill is its self a great cross training system within our Choy Lee fut system that Yiu Chi introduced.

There is just not enough time to learn the entire 200 plus forms that teach all the executions and techniques in our working lives. However Yiu Chi having made a standard approach with specialization enables the pupils to maximize their learning abilities.

However Yiu Chi maintained his family’s purest regime with his son Wan Hon by teaching him to master the 3 levels and then specialize, amongst other things, in his left hand side making him proficient in left and right offensive and defensive attacks. Wan Hon’s mastery of footwork, Tun, Toa, Bai, Sim, Fi like his father earned him the nickname a ngau (bull) as in attack and retreat he was a formidable opponent.

Yiu Chi continued his purest training for his grandson Yong Fa whom he personally trained up till 1965. Like a scene out of a movie, Yiu Chi would bind the legs of the young Yong Fa and dump him upside down in cold water several times on a winter morning to Bo Qi (create Qi) followed by Lohan Qigong to develop his internal Qi and strengthen his muscular skeletal frame. Then from the age of 4, Yong Fa was trained by Yiu Chi day and night towards mastery of the 3 levels of Choy Lee Fut with immense speed and accuracy.Yiu Chi’s father Koon Bak providing his son with both a martial and scholastic education was a legacy we all have benefited from. Yiu Chi was a true warrior of the Pen and the sword.

Grand Master Chen Yong Fa (陳永發) [Cantonese: Chan Wing Faat] is the first-born son of Chan Wan Hon. From the time he was four years old, he followed his grandfather Chan Yiu Chi, who taught him Kung Fu and Qigong from 1954 to 1963. After Chan Yiu Chi’s passing, Master Chan Yong Fa was trained and taught the entire system of Choy Lee Fut by his father, Chan Wan Hon from 1963 to 1982.

In 1980, Howard Choy, a student of the Choy Lee Fut Master Li Yu Ling (4th generation disciple of Chan Yiu Chi), went to China in search of Chan Heung’s bloodline, the origin of Choy Lee Fut. There, he met Chan Wan Hon and studied under him for a period of time with the help of Chan Yong Fa. From this humble beginning, Howard was asked to bring Chan Yong Fa out to Australia to spread and expand the Choy Lee Fut system in every part of the world.

Master Chan Yong Fa arrived in Australia in 1983 with a medical degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, specialising in bone setting. All he brought was one gim (sword), Kung Fu training clothes and Chan Heung’s training manuals. With the help of his father’s Kung Fu brother, Master Li Yu Ling, and a handful of dedicated students, a Kung Fu school and medical clinic were built from the ruins of a burnt-out warehouse in Chinatown. Together with his first batch of students in Australia, Yuen Gum Fai, Choy Hung, Yun Ji, Mark Whelan, Thomas Yuen, Tommy Hung, Alan Seeto and Ken Chan, a new chapter was born.

In 1987, Chan Yong Fa was invited to give seminars in Spain, Poland, Portugal and Finland. Because he gives 100% when he teaches CLF Kung Fu and the Qigong system, his seminars were fully attended by many people from around the world. As a result of these and future seminars, he met and taught thousands of practitioners.

In 1996, Chan Yong Fa started the Chan Family Choy Lee Fut Wing Sing Tong Office and laid the foundation for the Chan Family Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu and Lohan Qigong systems to be taught to an increasingly international audience.

In 2001, Grand Master Chen Yong Fa organised the first international seminar in China, coinciding with the restoration of the Choy Lee Fut Ancestral Hall in Ging Mui (the same building that Chan Heung first taught at). There, he held his first Bai Sun (traditional Chinese ceremony) to inaugurate the first generation of his disciples (the Dragon) generation. Since then, he inaugurated the second (Tiger) generation in 2013 and is currently in the process of testing the third (Leopard) generation.

Grand Master Chan Yong Fa continues to lead the Chan Family in Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu and Lohan Qigong internationally, and teaches its thousands of members worldwide.

NOTE: Because Master Chen is more widely known by the Mandarin pronunciation of his name, this is the spelling used on this page. All other names on the website are written in the Cantonese pronunciation by which they are more recognized.